so does anyone know some good gamebreaking mechanics or hidden mechanics to win the game?
some HEROES 1 SPECIFIC advice? (not press lmb to move kind of thing)

search is dead youtube is dead, it's impossible to use serach engines. it's all ads and ai slop, at best i get videos about 3 5 or 7 because it's impossible to search for the first game specifically

Play as Warlock. The final map is so much less frustrating when you have Dragons and Armageddon.

well i want to play all 4 campaigns

and i already lost the first map as warlock

The first map of the Warlcok campaign is quite simple: you have to stay in the middle of the map at the "crossroads" with a good hero.

This way, you can protect your castle quite easily by eliminating threats, and don't forget to hire a second hero
for moving reinforcements faster for your main hero.


Once you've got access to the Dragons, everything becomes simpler: I explore the other three corners of the map by moving a few squares forward, and I rush back to the crossroads if an AI threatens me.


You'll see that it takes time, but little by little you'll conquer every castle on the map.

The only real difference is your starting location and which of the 4 faction homeland missions you don't play. For example, if you choose to play the campaign as Warlock, then you always start in the Warlock location of each map (top left of the first campaign map) and you don't play the mission where you invade the Warlock homeland.

As for playing the missions, it kind of depends on the map. Certain maps have certain gimmicks you can use, while others don't. For example, in the Sorceress homeland map, the Sorceresses can't assault your side of the map unless you leave a boat for them to acquire.

Make sure you know what each faction's special hero ability is, and make use of those specials. A Knight can let you mix troops. A warlock scout sees a little farther. A Barbarian can quickly cross bad terrain even if you don't use Barbarian troops. Sorceresses are bad heroes. Keep an eye on the tavern for defeated heroes that have several level ups.

You want to be very fast in expanding. Don't sit around or you're going to have a bad time, especially in later levels where the AI may have multiple castles to your one. Make sure to scout widely so you can see what is happening.

The most game breaking combination is Dimension Door and high knowledge. Town Portal is very strong. Armageddon + Dragons is also stupidly powerful.

i've played a ton of every type of heroes game from 1 to 6th
so i already know to press LMB to move

but i've never won any of the heroes games. i only ever finished barbarians and undead campaigns in homm 6

in most of the old games there's a surefire strategy that devs created to win, and the point of the game is to find it like in a puzzle. instead of trying to play it properly like in the modern games.

well is there a way to get the dimension door? the spells are randomized?

Build Magic Guilds. Yes.

That hasn't been my experience for any of the conquest type campaign maps. Sure, some maps are gimmick maps or have a particular objective that you need to focus on (I'm thinking of HoMM3, where there is a particular Necromancer campaign map where your win condition is getting a particular hero across the map to a particular castle), but most of the HoMM1 campaign are standard matches.

Skill at the fundamentals is a huge part of what is needed, including a feel for what fights will turn out well and which fights won't (you can also use save scumming if you aren't good at this, reloading if the fight goes poorly). You need an understanding of what each unit does, which of your units need to be protected, and which units can be sacrificed to do that protecting.

I played through HoMM1 with the Knight faction first and did fine. The cheaper, more plentiful units work well. The last map gave me some trouble because all 3 AI are allied against you, but the standard strategy of "Move Fast, Hit Hard" still worked. I also played through the campaign as the Warlock; the stronger units are nice in combat, though the buildings are quite expensive.

There isn't a magic bullet way to win most of those maps. If you find yourself in a lost position on a campaign map, then take a look around at what you've explored (you've explored a lot, right?) to get a feel for where things are and then you can move faster on your next attempt.

If you've played as much as you say, then I'm not clear what you're missing. I just flattened Gateway after taking all enemy castles while only reloading once (I blindly attacked the sorceress castle, knowing that it was a bad idea, instead of building a Thieves Guild first to check for guards), and I might still have won if I'd played that out.

I've found HoMM5, where Ubisoft took over, to be FAR more gimmicky overall than any of the earlier campaigns I've played. I can't speak for 6+ because I haven't bothered to acquire them. Get a town with a level 4 mage guild to have a chance at it. Spells are randomized. If you go Warlock, then level 3 guild might give you storm, which also combos quite well with dragons.

Strong as it is, DD isn't the end-all be-all. You still need enough army/spell power to conquer the targets that DD helps you reach.

no i'm not talking about just individual maps but about the game design.
when the creator comes up with an idea how to play it and uses that in all playtesting, before the internet and big tests they were isolated alone with that one idea and had no feedback
but the customers don't know it nad try to play by the rules.

most old games have the universal trick that was abused by the developer. you know how cnc is played exclusively by engeneer transport rushes. aoe by peasant raids, aoe2 with castle offence or archer blobs, and most campaign maps are extremely hard unless you play the way the developers intended so you can finish each in minutes

well you see i've played thousands of hours of aoe2 but never could beat the campaigns, because the game's graphics suggest one thing which you use in your human logic, but the solutionis based in pure math. and when i got the solution now i 2 years i've beat almost every aoe game, now in the middle of ps2 release. i was using logic of getting mixed army and doing things as they are written on the units (militia good against buildings) when in fact every civ every map you only need a blob of archers and ram/treb/cannon. the enemy can't use cavalry attacks because in rock paper scissors archer win over literally everything even your civ doesn't have upgrades. and you want to do shoot run shoot run, because arbalesters still reload on the move. then there's f3 for pause and commands still work. then i read walkthroughs for the maps and memorized the triggers. etc etc.

the search engines are dead, so if there is someone who actually wrote or made a video tutorial i couldn't find it. same with caesar1. meanwhile aoe2 has tons of walkthroughs for most of the versions where people explain how to win each map

homm4 is the gimmick one, homm5 is just a remake of 3 and it's not ubisoft its nival that's why it is good, every nival game is good